


Brave new world

by hellokerry



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/M, Political Campaigns, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-04-08 14:01:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4307823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellokerry/pseuds/hellokerry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Late night during the Santos campaign. Donna and Josh on a plane.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brave new world

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greatestheights](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greatestheights/gifts).



> Written for the prompt "things you said that i wasn’t meant to hear."

They're on the Santos for America plane on the way to the next campaign stop. It's late and Donna is tired, drifting in and out ten feet from where Josh is sitting. They haven't fully made up and she can't decide if she's still mad at him. For what, she's not sure anymore: for not taking her seriously enough (for taking her too seriously), for the hours of life not lived while she was chained to her desk (the fact that she still isn't sure she would change those years for anything), for not sending her to Europe when she asked and instead sending her to the Middle East where she almost died. For dropping everything in an instant to be by her side only to lose whatever courage he had mustered to slink back into the status quo at the last minute. The fact that she let him.

She doesn't want to admit it, but Donna has been masking anger at herself with anger towards Josh. She's mad at herself for being content with stagnation and then so impatient that she was willing to severe ties with the greatest chance life ever gave her, because she suddenly felt the weight of three deaths pushing her into the earth and thought it was the only way to claw her way back out again.

She's been so angry these past few months and it doesn't suit her. She's trying to overcome it, but Josh is there with his wounded eyes that dredge her guilt up from the depths of her soul, and she's just one more person in his life who left. It's easier to be angry than to deal with it.

They're pretending, at least, for the sake of professionalism, to not still have this giant wedge of history between them. Every morning, Donna wakes up and kumbayas her way through the day, still new to the Santos campaign, still an interloper of sorts and trying to prove herself even though she wears the badge. She's still that idealistic 20-something at heart, breaking into a campaign office in New Hampshire and pretending her way into the confidence of people who are much more qualified. Though perhaps, she thinks, this time she's on the side of the well-seasoned, despite how Josh forces himself to take everything she says with a grain of salt, as if he's punishing her. He never used to do that. He would tease and raise his eyebrows and challenge her at every turn, but he always valued her opinion with a seriousness she sometimes felt she didn’t deserve. 

She misses that.

Still, she's one of the people who left. She knows it will take some time to come back from that.

She falls asleep to the sound of him arguing, heads down with Bram and Lou, and when she wakes with a start the entire plane is quiet except for the whispered voices of Congressman Santos and Josh, the man who never sleeps. She can tell he's tired and has to hold back from the years of learned habits she associates with that gravelly, low tone. This world is different. She's different, and Josh surrounds himself with people she doesn't know just like before, but she has a level of expertise that allows her to move in and out with ease, the seasoned White House employee in the midst of the young congressionals. It's strange. She has a hard time feeling grounded. She's still trying to prove herself in a way, but at least she knows that this time she won't have to contend with her ex-boyfriend calling at 2 am, begging desperately that he wants her back. 

(Josh isn't her ex-boyfriend, and he never called to say he couldn't live without her. He never called at all.)

She's trying to fall back asleep when she hears his voice float through the cabin. It takes all of her self control not to jolt right up: "Put Donna on that."

"Are you sure she can handle it? She's still so new. And you weren’t exactly thrilled that Lou hired her." Matt Santos’ voice sounds skeptical, but kind. Donna wishes she had been paying attention to what they were talking about before and wonders for the millionth time why she hasn’t been here all along.

"Yeah," Josh says quietly. She can see him from where she sits at the front of the plane, his body illuminated by the overhead light. His shoulders are squared, his hair sticking out in all directions, and if she squints she can fool herself into thinking this is seven years ago and then three, her world defined by so many late nights riding in planes with this boy. 

She watches him hesitate for a moment, as if mulling something over, and then suddenly his words are echoing in her ears even though they’re barely above a whisper.

"The thing is, if there's one thing I've never regretted, it's letting Donna handle something. She's the smartest person I've ever known."

And that - that right there, Donna thinks, is why she spent almost seven years waffling in the bull pen instead of spreading her wings in the outside world. Because Josh, with his Ivy league education and his two graduate degrees, has just told the next President of the United States that she, Donna Moss, is the smartest person he knows. He even sounded like he meant it. 

Donna, with her high school education and three unfinished semesters of college, who broke his trust and then his heart on the White House floor and never looked back. He's been angry with her over that; more than hurt. Donna has been acting self-righteous about it, but the truth of the matter is she's left him twice and he is sitting ten feet in front of her, somehow still on her team. 

He has always been on her team.

They land in Nevada at 6 am and everyone stumbles out of the plane, ready-but-not-ready to face the demands of a new day. Josh barks orders on two hours of sleep from the top of the airstair and gains some withering glances from the devoted recruits.

Donna brushes her fingertips against the small of his back as she disembarks. She lingers long enough for him to know it was intentional. 

She left him twice, but the important thing is that she always comes back. 

(Matt Santos puts her in charge of media buys and lets her liaison with the press. It is weeks before her and Josh truly reconcile and months before they kiss, but Donna starts looking at him with a level of expectation and inevitability that she thought she had forgotten. Josh is looking at her too.

Josh writes a book and dedicates it to her, the woman who kept him in line and gave him everything. The woman who he has loved.

Always.)


End file.
